TEITR409 William Laing

===

[00:00:00] Veronica: In this episode, we look beneath the surface of Australia's property market to explore the rise of the quiet deal, the growing trend of off-market transactions that never make it to [00:00:10] public portals. Off-market listings are often seen as exclusive opportunities, but are they really, many of these sellers aren't fully committed to moving, reluctant to invest in marketing and often holding [00:00:20] high price expectations.

[00:00:21] Veronica: So is this trend reshaping how real demand and supply meet, or is it just masking unrealistic vent or sentiment?

[00:00:28] Veronica: To unpack this, we are joined by William [00:00:30] Lang, co-founder and CEO of Quiet List. Australia's first agent only property platform designed to connect qualified buyers with off market opportunities.

[00:00:38] ​

[00:01:16] Veronica: Our guest today is William Lang, co-founder and [00:01:20] CEO of Quiet List. With more than a decade in luxury real estate and a career built around discretion and deal making, William brings a rare insight into how much of the market is now happening [00:01:30] behind closed doors and what it means for agents, buyers, and vendors alike.

[00:01:33] Veronica: So William, this is gonna be an interesting discussion. I know you've released some research recently and we are keen to [00:01:40] understand all of that. So welcome. Welcome to the elephant, the room. Thank you. Thanks for having me, Chris and Veronica. I'm excited to be here. Yeah, thanks for joining us. I think, um, I, I read your article [00:01:50] on the a FR and we'll put a link in our show notes and I said, wanting five properties in Sydney selling off market.

[00:01:55] Chris: Um, it's a, it's a good headline. Um, and what off market's actually [00:02:00] increasing, do you feel? How do you know? And um, yeah, what's some of the stats you're basing that on? Anecdotally, within the industry, people would tout that it was 20%. When we launched [00:02:10] Quiet List at the end of last year, we decided to drill into the numbers to see if that anecdotal figure was accurate based.

[00:02:19] William: I'm based [00:02:20] in Sydney, so we did 10 different LGAs. And the average of all of those LGAs turned out to be 20.5%. We aren't saying that this is a trend [00:02:30] because this is the only sample data that our team has done for the calendar year 2024. We are compiling data for Brisbane and Melbourne for FY [00:02:40] 25 to see if we can get a comparison, um, and we will be collating the data on the settled sales.

[00:02:45] William: Next year. So we can't say that it's a trend, but we can say [00:02:50] that the market is strong at 20.5% across Sydney and it's an interesting figure. It's one five's a lot.

[00:02:56] Veronica: there's a couple things there. One is, which we'll get to in a little bit. I really want you [00:03:00] to define exactly what constitutes an off market listing.

[00:03:02] Veronica: We'll get to that. Before we get to that, what I'd like to understand is the methodology. So when you say that you, are you picked, is it 10 [00:03:10] LGAs or local government areas and assessed how many properties actually sold off market? How did you do that? Where did you get those numbers from and, and what was the analysis?

[00:03:19] William: So it's a [00:03:20] very slow and painful process to do. I think it was circa 33,000 transactions that were analyzed, and it was done using, I'm gonna call it RP data. [00:03:30] I know they've rebranded, but I can't remember what their new name is now. And thankfully in RP data, you can search by LGA. You don't have to do the individual suburbs within an [00:03:40] LGA.

[00:03:40] William: So RP data is an incredible tool, right? It's not always a hundred percent accurate. So where it said that a campaign didn't exist, that might [00:03:50] not necessarily be true. It could have appeared on the public facing portals. So where there was a gray area or we weren't sure, we would check [00:04:00] cross-referenced.

[00:04:00] William: That. Was there evidence of a public campaign in terms of what's constituting a off market sale? For us, it was the absence of a [00:04:10] public campaign. It was done all unsettled sales obviously. So anything that had exchanged but not settled was not included in the data set. We excluded anything that [00:04:20] was done as what I would call an internal transfer.

[00:04:23] William: So between a company to. A person or whatever. It's usually represented by a very nominal figure, like a [00:04:30] dollar or $0. And then anything else that was property. It was a two bedroom apartment in Bondi, and it was traded for, let's say [00:04:40] $400,000, but we know it's probably worth one and a half million. That was excluded from the data set as well, because it wasn't seen as a market transaction, basically.

[00:04:47] William: Yeah, yeah. Oh, well, good. I was hoping that you'd excluded those [00:04:50] because there. Is a fair, there's a significant number of those at any time. When you look into RP data, one thing, 'cause I pulled you up, I, I queried you about this actually on your LinkedIn, uh, post on [00:05:00] this one, one thing that I look at and you recognize when you're looking through the major portals, you'll see an advertisement.

[00:05:06] Veronica: Advertisement. Say for a development there's one ad, but there [00:05:10] might be 40 apartments or a hundred apartments or whatever. So was that taken out of the, the equation as well? Yeah, because obviously. Being settled. Sales. Right. There [00:05:20] was a project marketing campaign that existed that is a public campaign, so that didn't count as an off market transaction, even if that project marketing campaign was done three years ago.

[00:05:29] William: Right. [00:05:30] Like, 'cause it would be done for the whole development. So, no, that was not included.

[00:05:33] Veronica: So tell me what exactly counts then as an off market listing or a quiet listing? So how do you define it? Because I [00:05:40] can tell you that in our business we sort of, there's the real off market and there's a sort of fake off market.

[00:05:45] Veronica: The fake off market is really a. A pre-market, it hits the agent's portal [00:05:50] that doesn't hit say, domain and or REA. So it's sort of half on the market in a way, but it's sort of quiet to that agent's database. And then there's the, the genuine off market that [00:06:00] there's not even a photo taken, you know what I mean?

[00:06:02] Veronica: Like, or there might have a floor plan. That's it. It adds some, this is totally. Word of mouth. The agent and the buyer in some way [00:06:10] get together, and that's truly off market as it the, the general market does not get access to that. So how do you define an off market listing?

[00:06:19] William: So I think for the [00:06:20] purpose, for the listeners, for the purpose of the data, we can't really segment a pre-market versus, as you say, like a true off market because.

[00:06:29] William: A, there's [00:06:30] too many sales to analyze, to then dig into was it on a real estate agent's website? As opposed to like only having a floor plan and only going out to a just very minute number [00:06:40] of people. So it was more highlighting that to the wider market, that there is a certain percentage of these, let's call them pre-market and off markets that are occurring and that they are [00:06:50] not going on the public facing portals.

[00:06:52] William: They may be on the real estate agents. Site, but they're not, you can't just be sitting there as a, would be buyer expecting everything [00:07:00] that's just gonna pop up on Domain or REA. You're missing 20% of the market.

[00:07:03] Veronica: So you've verified that in, at least since those 10 LGAs in Sydney, would you say that they're actually increasing, or would you say [00:07:10] that it's been like that for a long time and it's just, hasn't been, the spotlight hasn't been shown on it, is it, is it a change or is this just something that has been happening for a long time that nobody's actually bothered to [00:07:20] quantify?

[00:07:20] William: I think. It's probably the latter part. No one's bothered to quantify it and they've just cherry picked this figure. The fact that it worked out to be basically the same figure, it was quite [00:07:30] remarkable. I, to be honest, didn't expect the figures to actually be at 20%, and if you look at the article in some LGAs, it's much lower and some LGAs, it's much higher.

[00:07:38] William: This is obviously an average. [00:07:40] It's probably been around that number for a while. As you would see, like in your business, Veronica, you would see how much stuff is. The pre-market, as you say, that are [00:07:50] getting snapped up? You know, the days on market are so short because there's so much early lead time with the buyer's agent and hot buyers on a database that essentially a lot of people have already done their [00:08:00] due diligence and research before it goes on a portal, and it's only on a portal for two days anyway.

[00:08:04] William: In that instance, it was not included as an off market sale because it went on a public facing portal. But I [00:08:10] think I'll be interested. Hence meaning to come back in 12 months time and I'll be able to tell you based on the data that we see coming out of Melbourne and Brisbane, and then the comparison on the LGAs for the calendar year [00:08:20] for this year, that will be able to indicate whether this is a trend that's growing or if it's just sort of a stabilized figure that corner of the market.

[00:08:27] Chris: Where did this idea for Quiet list, I [00:08:30] mean, and it just explain why you've ended up with this. Business model. It sounds like you found out that there's a lot of properties going off market and maybe there's an opportunity here and how did you end up [00:08:40] landing where you are?

[00:08:40] William: Yeah, so quietly sort of came out of the idea and I know you talk, you're very vocal about the rise of buyer agents, Veronica, and I don't think anybody can [00:08:50] disagree that they are a real force in the industry.

[00:08:52] William: Like real estate agents, they're not all effective. Some are good and some are bad, but the number is growing. Like I was speaking to one of our [00:09:00] clients that uses our platform, they tracked 30% of their sales last year was done through a buyer's agent. That's a big number. That's a here in Sydney, but that's a big number of their [00:09:10] annualized sales figures.

[00:09:10] William: So as Veronica, you would know you get the way that pre-market and off-market properties communicated from real estate agents to buyer agents. Is [00:09:20] very, it's not streamlined in any way, shape, or form. It's, it's email blast, it's WhatsApp text, it's it, it's short of sending a carrier pigeon. There was just no centralized spot to do [00:09:30] this.

[00:09:30] William: So the idea came, well, we think it's 20%. The data backed that up. What if we put all of that in a centralized location so that the buyer's agents could see all of [00:09:40] the off market properties that were available? But then the idea came, it sort of extrapolated Chris, the buyer's agents, they buy our briefs.

[00:09:48] William: Currently due to the sheer [00:09:50] number of buyer's agents, the volume of emails that go out about buyer briefs to real estate agents is. Prolific.

[00:09:57] Veronica: Yep. They hate it.

[00:09:59] William: They hate [00:10:00] they don't read them, right? Mm-hmm. But it's a qualified lead, like someone's paid minimum five grand for that email brief to go out. So we had this idea, well, in the [00:10:10] same way that you can go to a portal and search for a property, what if we put all the buyer briefs.

[00:10:15] William: In a centralized spot, and the real estate agents could search by budget, [00:10:20] property type bedrooms, bathrooms, cars, same way you do for a property, and then they can prospect off it. They can call the buyer's agents, they can look at it in their own time instead of trying to do a [00:10:30] keyword search in their inbox, that's how it came about. Just trying to make it a more effective way for verified demand to talk to supply and try and streamline the guys to do deals [00:10:40] faster.

[00:10:40] Veronica: Well, you're not the only person trying to solve this problem. There's a number of people out there using tech to try to solve exactly this.

[00:10:46] Veronica: Um, and, and other problem. The problem there might have other. [00:10:50] The things that add to their, uh, other features that they offer. It's sort of, for me, it, it's interesting 'cause it's sort of about market efficiencies in a way, isn't it? I mean, like, here we are, you've got one [00:11:00] channel, uh, the buyer's agent or the another channel, the sales agent.

[00:11:03] Veronica: You've got these jointed communication between the two. One that's largely ignored as, as we know, sales agents. Tend [00:11:10] to, uh, ignore those email blasts. And, you know, buyer's agents need to do a lot of work in terms of targeting those blasts as well, because, you know, I'm in Bal Mata. I don't wanna get a, an email saying, you're looking for something in North [00:11:20] Balala.

[00:11:20] Veronica: You know what I mean? Like, it's, it's like, I, I don't care. I'm just gonna chuck that. Right. But you know, in a seller's market, you can sort of understand, I guess why you'd load [00:11:30] up the listings. You know what I mean? And the buyers age to be flocking to get in there because it's a seller's market and it's really hard to find stock.

[00:11:37] Veronica: Um, but in a buyer's market, I can see that [00:11:40] effectively pitching the buyer rather than the property might make sense, you know? So I guess, is this type of platform ideally suited to one type of market condition, or does it [00:11:50] pivot and swing, you know, with. You know with the way it goes, because you know, as a sales agent, you know, when I used to be a sales agent, you got a good listing.

[00:11:58] Veronica: I don't need to put it on some portal and [00:12:00] try to push it to buyer's agents. I actually want it to have its day in the sun. I want full exposure. I wanna get all the marketing exposure for that. I wanna run that thing to auction 'cause I know I'm gonna get 10 people register and fight over [00:12:10] it. My incentive to encourage an owner to go quietly is really low, whereas my.

[00:12:16] Veronica: To encourage an owner to go quietly or, or softly. Softly is when [00:12:20] the either the market shit or the property shit. So do we have a bit of a problem with that as well?

[00:12:26] William: It's a really good point. I think that, going back to the data [00:12:30] set that we were talking about, what we've identified is, and why I say we don't wanna be, we're on a portal, we're a platform because.

[00:12:36] William: I think we compliment the portals. We're not like, we're not [00:12:40] running in competition too, because that 20% is already happening, but as we indicated, there's no efficiencies in how it happens, right? And the rise of buyer's agents. Take [00:12:50] for example, Alain, if a real estate agent has something called a quiet listing.

[00:12:55] William: There's new buyer's agents with briefs entering that market. They don't have time to know [00:13:00] all the buyer's agents in the market. But if you've got a client that suits that property, they wanna do a deal with you, right? That both sides are motivated to get a deal done. So I think you're right, like it [00:13:10] does pivot and swing with the market conditions.

[00:13:12] William: What we've seen effective agents using the platform for is a lot of them will start on our platform and end up [00:13:20] going to a full public campaign. It's not necessarily, this is the, it's just another we, I pitch it as another tool in their tool belt. Right? Because. The agents are required to have a draft [00:13:30] contract of sale and an exclusive agency agreement.

[00:13:32] William: So you're getting a commitment from that vendor, even if it's just for a short period that their intention is to sell. And as you well know, [00:13:40] if they're price testing or just getting feedback after getting some foot traffic through the door and wrapping their head around the fact that if they got a good offer, they'd sell it or whatever.

[00:13:48] William: If they do, don't get the [00:13:50] result in that phase of the campaign cycle. Odds are they're gonna go on. The public portals and you're still gonna get your day in the sun at the auction and all that sort of stuff. So it's starting [00:14:00] to get the vendors on that journey earlier and perhaps not asking for that ex expensive marketing cost upfront.

[00:14:06] Chris: I always, um, wonder if that's, uh, the right sales [00:14:10] pitch from the buyer's agent. Um, you know, you're stitching yourself up, you're over promise or something you can gonna under deliver on. But yeah, firstly I think you have to be really careful who you let on from the buyer's agents. 'cause any [00:14:20] man dog can call themselves the buyer's agent.

[00:14:21] Chris: Secondly, they could put on any brief that they want, whether they've got the brief or not. and I just want a, you know, a terrace in Paddington and I wanna pay $4 million and, you [00:14:30] know, I want it to be on a good street. And they just leave that brief up at all times. cause I reckon, you know, whenever you've got a system or a technology, there's gonna people who don't really use it the way it's intended.

[00:14:38] Chris: totally. Yeah. So how, how are you [00:14:40] sort of managing that?

[00:14:40] William: So right now, when, when a buyer's agent signs up, you don't automatically get access to the platform. You, we check that you are who you say you are because we've got an ethical wall between the two. Right. [00:14:50] Buyer's agents can see all properties on the platform, but they can only see the briefs that they put up.

[00:14:54] William: Real estate agents can see all the briefs, but they can only see the properties that they put up. So it's defined by which [00:15:00] side of the transaction you sit on, but when they sign up, you have to give us your real estate license number based on the state in which you operate and you have to, the key part is that you're an [00:15:10] independent buyer's agency firm, and then we check that you are who you say you are based on the real estate license and the firm, and based on your credentials, you get access.

[00:15:19] William: [00:15:20] So some punter who thinks he's a buyer's agent isn't from the general public isn't gonna get access. Uh, the other thing we've done is we've limited the briefs to six active briefs [00:15:30] per user because I don't think that one individual buyer's agent can probably service. More than six clients at any one time.

[00:15:38] William: And that's to keep the brief [00:15:40] active. 'cause there's not much point in matching it to a property. And then the real estate agent calls Veronica and she's like, I bought for that person four months ago. Like it's a useless tool then

[00:15:49] Veronica: just [00:15:50] cracks me up. Domain off market, I'm sorry, but domain on market. If you're on domain, it's like.

[00:15:56] Veronica: I, I've, I saw an ad for an off market auction. I mean like really [00:16:00]

[00:16:00] William: just look and people think off market is probably the most overused term in real estate. The data shows that it does in fact happen, but people think I'm a snake o oil salesman when I'm [00:16:10] pedaling off market an off market platform. So it does take the conversations like this to break down sort of any stigma.

[00:16:17] William: So the thing, the thing I was gonna say is the [00:16:20] same way that a real estate agent has to have a draft contract of sale and an agency agreement that's checked by the admin team before a property is published. Some of the users, particularly in [00:16:30] Sydney, where they feel like there's some briefs out there that may not be representative of a real brief, that that buyer's agent had some feedback, which we haven't implemented yet.

[00:16:39] William: We're in a [00:16:40] growth phase, so we can't really do it. We're trying to become ubiquitous within the market, so we can't bite the hand that feeds us right now, but in time we could look at that. You needed to provide the [00:16:50] agency agreement that goes with that brief.

[00:16:52] Veronica: So this is a very interesting one because it really easily verify.

[00:16:56] Veronica: Fi the things that a sales agent says that they have or haven't done, [00:17:00] except if it's a true off market, it's sold, it's on their portal, it's got their name on it, or on if it's on market or REA or Domain, it's got their name on it. And unless they leave the agency, in which [00:17:10] case they'll remove all the names, it'll be un, you know, a discontinued user.

[00:17:13] Veronica: But at the end of the day, you know, you go into the backend of realestate.com au or to Domain, it's got the agent [00:17:20] profiles. Tallies up all the, all the properties that they've shown sold via that portal. And I get that. That's the on markets, not the off markets, but even the off markets. When you look on the agent's website, you look at Breasted Whitney, for [00:17:30] example, who's got a whole section there for off markets and you know, you, you can easily go, yes, that agent does work for that agency has sold those properties.

[00:17:38] Veronica: Whereas with buyer's [00:17:40] agents, it's much more opaque. And so, and also. By law, they have to have an agency agreement and a draft contract to sale. As you said before, they can show a [00:17:50] property and you know, by law, a buyer's agent is meant to have an agency agreement. But again, you know, I can tell you I bought all these properties, but unless you ring up the sales agent of each of those ones, you don't [00:18:00] know whether I was involved or not.

[00:18:01] Veronica: There's nothing on the public record that. Verifies anything that a buyer's agent does, and if I had to give you an agency agreement, I'd be concerned about privacy. [00:18:10] You know? And so you'd have to have an issue, you'd have to have a, like a, a protocol around how you would handle that, that information as well.

[00:18:17] Veronica: So it, it, you know, so privacy is. [00:18:20] Great protects people's, you know, the innocent to the, the clients. But you know, again, it makes it more difficult, doesn't it, to verify a buyer's agent's claim. It's, [00:18:30] whereas it's much more trans transparent for sales agents.

[00:18:33] William: Like I have a New South Wales real estate license, right?

[00:18:35] William: If I went to sell a property in Victoria and it was on the portals, fair trading would be [00:18:40] on me so quickly because I don't have. A Victorian real estate license, but as you know, like you can get one now, agents that buy across the country, you know what I mean? It's, it's not state, [00:18:50] so it goes back to your opaque point, right?

[00:18:53] William: Like it is, I say it's the wild, wild west. It will change, but it is. It's such a fast growing segment. It, I, I think [00:19:00] it has to,

[00:19:01] Veronica: um, well, I, I, well, we we're going down a different path here, but, you know, I'd like to think it's gonna change. I see it getting worse, to be honest. Um, more [00:19:10] nefarious players getting involved, but also there's no national oversight of real estate at all.

[00:19:14] Veronica: And as a selling agent, I'm not gonna sell a property in Melbourne. If I'm based in Sydney. It's just not gonna happen. But a [00:19:20] buyer's agent will call themselves borderless and buy everywhere. And a lot of them don't even know they're meant to be licensed, uh, in different states. So the amount of people I've spoken to that aren't even fully [00:19:30] licensed in the state they're in, and yet they're running these businesses.

[00:19:32] Veronica: So, and again because like you say, if I was a sales agent and I was advertising something and Fair Trading wanted to check whether I was licensed, it's [00:19:40] pretty easy. They, I can join the dots, but nobody knows what buyer's agents are out there doing. So it's an interesting approach that you guys wanna verify.

[00:19:47] Veronica: Buyer's agents, and I think that that's admirable, [00:19:50] actually.

[00:19:50] William: Yeah. Well, the idea is that in building a marketplace, right, you have to have the right audience on both sides, but you also have to respect the ecosystem that already exists. So by [00:20:00] having an agent only and checking and reinforcing that, I think buyer's agents are an integral part and certainly have cemented themselves.

[00:20:08] William: They offer a great service, right? [00:20:10] Like, what do they say on average a person buys a home every seven years. Like, I think it's a remarkable thing that for so long, because people just think that they could figure out that whole end to end [00:20:20] on their own sales, on their own, you know? So I think I'm, I'm a huge advocate for buyer's agents.

[00:20:24] William: I think the ones that have the track record and have the right credentials can offer huge [00:20:30] value to the end user. But for us. It's about having the agent on both sides of the transaction. That's what we're there to support

[00:20:37] Chris: with of off market, right? So you. [00:20:40] Because I just can see, I can just worry about this getting gamified and your platform getting used for the wrong reasons.

[00:20:45] Chris: Right? And so you've got like your buyer's agent, right, who's mates with the agent, and agents are always [00:20:50] hunting for listening. And it's a dog eat dog world. Like I would definitely not wanna be an agent, like it's survival of the fittest. It is a, you know, they all. Bag each other out. No one's friends really like it's, [00:21:00] and then people switch agencies and take the data and then they tell.

[00:21:04] Chris: So it's a, it's a horrible thing, right? And so if someone, you know, as an agent, if I get this genuine off [00:21:10] market listing, I don't want no one to know about it, right? So I put on this portal, does the buyer, like if I've got a mate as advisor mate, can you just check on the portals? What else is coming on [00:21:20] to.

[00:21:20] Chris: To, you know, because I'm mates and the, the buyer's agent probably do it because he's probably like, well, hang on a sec. Yeah, I, I can get a bit of kudos here with the agent. Next time they get a good listing, they might gimme a bit of preference and so [00:21:30] do they see the actual address?

[00:21:32] William: The agents can put up as much information as they and the vendor feel comfortable with.

[00:21:36] William: So if they just wanna say it's a four bedroom terrace in [00:21:40] Paddington, contact Veronica for further details. That's what you do. Some will say, here are the photos from when it last traded, or some will. They, they've had photos done. You know, it's a pre-market, off market type [00:21:50] one. There's, there's a million different things

[00:21:51] William: we have tried to safeguard that as much as we can, Chris, in that, you know, each time a buyer's agent logs in, they get a two-factor authentication. [00:22:00] A code gets sent their phone so that, you know, that's only valid for two minutes. So that Veronica can't give you. Her login, so you can just peruse. The other thing, [00:22:10] going back to your example is that, that that can happen if the agent communicates that out through a WhatsApp text.

[00:22:16] William: Someone can just screenshot it and send it anyway. But the only thing that we've [00:22:20] done to safeguard is that at least that agent. Has an exclusive agreement in place many times, particularly in Sydney. From my experience, the vendor will say, yeah, yeah, [00:22:30] yeah, Veronica. Like if you, if, if they, if you can get someone to buy it at that price, like we are, we, we'll do a deal, we'll pay the comm, but I don't really wanna sign an agreement.

[00:22:37] William: So in that instance, when that goes out on [00:22:40] a WhatsApp and then I share. To you, Chris, and then you go and door knock it. The sales agent has no protection over cultivating that relationship and starting that off market. [00:22:50] Whereas on our platform, everybody knows that you have to have an exclusive agreement.

[00:22:55] William: The agency agreement and the draft contract of sale aren't visible to [00:23:00] the buyer's agents. So they don't know if it's an exclusive agreement. That's six months or 10 days. So that's what we've tried to safeguard. So if someone does the wrong thing, we've still got an agency agreement. [00:23:10] And if you, and if you're not gonna sell it, and the vendor's shaky and they terminate you after the agreement ends.

[00:23:16] William: Then you're probably not gonna get it into a full campaign anyway.

[00:23:18] Speaker 2: I'm on a personal mission [00:23:20] to help more people make better property decisions. You know, most people don't realize that they can cost themselves hundreds of thousands of dollars over the medium to long term when they make property decisions [00:23:30] without all of the information that they need. And what I do is help people with tricky real estate problems, which offer masqueraders simple questions like, should I sell my investment property [00:23:40] because the interest re payments are hurting, or should I buy before I sell?

[00:23:44] Speaker 2: Or the other way around. You could connect with me and access all of the tools that I've created to help you make better property [00:23:50] decisions at Veronica Morgan dot com au. And there you'll find resources for first home buyers, details about my buyer's agent mentoring program. You could connect with my Sydney [00:24:00] based property management and buyer's agency teams, Australia wide vendor advocacy.

[00:24:04] Speaker 2: Or ask me for introduction to the small group of buyer agents that I would personally recommend across [00:24:10] the country. That's Veronica Morgan dot com au.

[00:24:12] Speaker 3: If you're considering a property move, which is buying your first time, upgrading, renovating, or investing, the team here at Alcove would love [00:24:20] to help you think through your decision and get the finance right.

[00:24:23] Speaker 3: Please go to cove.com au to reach out.

[00:24:26] Veronica: And that, that's a good point. 'cause what I, I really wanna talk about why would [00:24:30] somebody want a list quietly instead of opening up their property to the widest market. Now, I, I, I do know why some agents do we touch on it before in terms of a, a market testing or a, [00:24:40] a conditioning, uh, process to get their vendors head in the game as to where the price really is likely to sit.

[00:24:46] Veronica: But that's sort of from the agent's point of view. Why would the [00:24:50] owner. Specifically wanna go quiet. Do you think there's

[00:24:53] William: a million reasons why people like choose to sell off market? It could be. It could be cost related. On the major [00:25:00] portals, that's probably not the highest one. That's the first one that came to mind.

[00:25:03] William: It could be all the things that go with life. It's divorce, financial issue. You know, like [00:25:10] going, doing a public campaign is a very public thing. Your whole your, because as soon as it goes up, what do the agents do? They ring the whole street and say, did you see 123 Smith Streets OH I heard they're guiding four and a half.[00:25:20]

[00:25:21] William: So even with, you might not be looking at domain every day, but someone in your street is gonna know your house is for sale and whatever your circumstances are, maybe you don't [00:25:30] want that. And you're right, it is price testing, but also it can be used in different ways. There are some markets in Sydney or just outside Sydney where it's not, the market is not [00:25:40] humming.

[00:25:40] William: It's not steaming ahead like certain aspects are. So the agency using it as a tool almost in the reverse, it's been on it's gathering days on [00:25:50] market. People think that it's getting stale or there's something wrong with it, or there's something wrong with the price. So they're taking it off and they're putting it on our platform.

[00:25:57] William: So it still has visibility to the buyer's [00:26:00] agents because they're getting new clients all the time, doesn't get days on market, and maybe they'll give it a rest and they'll do it after Christmas for the February rush. So there's different ways that people can use the platform. [00:26:10] To benefit them. Not just, not just being like, I don't want anyone to know that we're for sale, or my expectations are 2 million bucks above where the market is.

[00:26:18] Chris: Yeah. There's a gap, isn't there? [00:26:20] There's like a, you don't want to use the portals 'cause it's so public and it's on, you know, record, it's on up data and you know, you don don't want to just put it on there, get it stale and you days on [00:26:30] market, you've gotta be, you're gonna be on there, you gotta be serious.

[00:26:32] Chris: You've gotta, you protect

[00:26:33] William: the integrity of it. Yeah. Like buyers are very sensitive. And if it's priced incorrectly, I think that's where you see [00:26:40] the whole pre-market. Phenomenon really is, getting that pricing accurate. and that feedback is so important. Mm-hmm.

[00:26:47] Chris: And even just investors, right? Like there's, you know, I wanna sell [00:26:50] it, but I don't wanna sell it.

[00:26:50] Chris: I don't wanna put it on there now because, you know, I've got a tenant and they're not keeping it, you know, 99 out of a hundred, you know, it's, it's, it's okay, but I don't, wouldn't want, I'm not gonna sell it in the [00:27:00] best conditions, but. The lease finishes in July. Why don't I just list it on quiet list for, you know, the next few months If a buyer's just believes to look past that, right.

[00:27:08] Chris: Um, then yeah, if it's another

[00:27:09] William: investor, [00:27:10] buyer or whatever. Otherwise, when the tenant leaves, I'm gonna have to get it repainted, recarpeted, and get it all ready to do that marketing campaign. I think the brilliant thing about what we've, what we're trying to create is [00:27:20] that. It is agent to agent. So agent speak is very different to agent.

[00:27:24] William: Yeah, that's right. Yeah. So they can, they can have that conversation and be like, look, it looks great. Like what's wrong with it? Or Where do [00:27:30] I need my client to be price wise? To get it to them and they can say, look, their expectations are up here, but I think if we can get somewhere around this number and you say, well, that based on the data that stacks up.

[00:27:39] William: [00:27:40] You know what I mean? That's a very different conversation than real estate agent talking to mom and dad at an open home. And how long have you been live for? Like technically live? Is it just now or have you Uh, November. Last year [00:27:50] we were live and. Initially we didn't have the buyer brief functionality that was introduced in March, which has been a bit of a game changer for us.

[00:27:57] Chris: And how, how's the takeup going with agents? Like [00:28:00] what are some of the, you know, are they still a little bit apprehensive? 'cause it's a new way of thinking about things. They've got their own process,

[00:28:05] William: That happens with everything when you're enco, when you, when people are doing a process and you encourage 'em [00:28:10] to look at it a little bit differently, like as you just ask where you like, well, why would I put it on a portal?

[00:28:14] William: But I said, you know, but what's the difference between a screenshot on a portal or a screenshot on a WhatsApp thread? At [00:28:20] least in this instance, you've got an agency, Graham. It's, so, the agents major change is that the real estate agents love being able to search the briefs. They hate the emails. They [00:28:30] hate being bombarded.

[00:28:31] William: I dunno why all buyers agents seem to send them out on a Tuesday. and on a Tuesday they're getting, you know, between 20 and 25 emails with [00:28:40] six briefs on each. It's a lot of, it's a lot of briefs. Like it's it's not sustainable for anybody to read. So they like that. They can just log in and if they're going to an appraisal on Friday, they can see that there's [00:28:50] five briefs for.

[00:28:51] William: A two bedroom unit in Balmain that suits what they have and that that's something that they can talk with the vendor about.

[00:28:57] Veronica: It's interesting too because you know, like you are, you are [00:29:00] trying to buy something you can target, you know, 99% accuracy, which agents are gonna be selling the property that you're gonna be wanting to buy.

[00:29:07] Veronica: Right? You've gotta finite area [00:29:10] agents are typically locally based sales agents. That is. So that's, that's easier to hone your activity. So buyer's agent's much easier to go out there and, and I know which agents I need to [00:29:20] deal with, whereas the selling agent is dealing with buyer's. Agents typically run a bigger territory.

[00:29:25] Veronica: So even though I'm a big advocate for local specialists, you have to be a local specialist. I think [00:29:30] otherwise you're not really adding a huge amount of value as a buyer's agent. But my territory that my business covers as a buyer's agency is, is. Still bigger than it would if I was a sales agency with the same name, number of [00:29:40] people.

[00:29:40] Veronica: And so therefore, it's much harder for the, the, the selling agent to be able to work out well in which direction am I gonna target this. So I can definitely see the advantage [00:29:50] to coroll these people in one spot, um, to make it more, more targeted for the sales agent.

[00:29:56] William: Yeah, like when I was selling, I was sold a property and.[00:30:00]

[00:30:00] William: The buyer was introduced by a co-agent, so we split the comm, but the buyer was a buyer, had a buyer's agent. I just didn't have a relationship with that buyer's [00:30:10] agent, so I ended up splitting the fee if I knew that they had that brief because. Kept my whole fee

[00:30:16] Veronica: because I was talking to an auctioneer only a couple of weeks ago who [00:30:20] does quite a bit in the eastern suburbs of Sydney.

[00:30:21] Veronica: Right. And, and you know, this could well be something that happens in other areas as well, but it's sort of a bit renowned. A lot of agents never get the, they, they will [00:30:30] list a property for auction. So we're getting on market back. We're talking on market, not off market here. They're listed property for auction, but they'll never actually get to auction because those agents [00:30:40] have a a, a method by which they basically will pin buyers feet to the floor and they'll sell most of their properties beforehand.

[00:30:46] Veronica: So they pay the auctioner. That's all paid for in the marketing, but the auctioner [00:30:50] never actually has to do a job, Greg. Gee, really? When you think about it. But you know, is it that great? I mean, and. He was sort of nudge, nudge, wink, wink about the co a [00:31:00] collusion that is occurring between some buyer's agents and some sales agents.

[00:31:03] Veronica: So there, there's off market deals that never would even hit this sort of portal because they've sort of got this cozy little [00:31:10] relationship that goes on. Is that something you are trying to attack or is that something you're aware of?

[00:31:18] William: Yeah, well, that's always gonna happen, right? [00:31:20] Like initially when we started this, some buyer's agents were like concerned because they're, wait, you are gonna put all of the off markets and make it an even playing field on one platform for all the buyer's [00:31:30] agency?

[00:31:30] William: I've spent so long cultivating my relationships with the selling agency in my core area. So there was a, a little bit scary for them about the idea of this, but it doesn't take away the, [00:31:40] the relationship based nature of what you do because. If I'm the selling agent and it's on quiet list and I've done a deal with Veronica and her [00:31:50] brief matches my listing and Chris so does yours.

[00:31:52] William: I'm probably gonna call her first anyway 'cause I know that we've done a deal together and like I know that she can perform to a transaction. [00:32:00] Doesn't mean I'm gonna exclude you, but we have a relationship that you don't, so it's still gonna come back down. Like if, if you come through with the buyer in the end, great.

[00:32:07] William: Like I'll know that moving forward, [00:32:10] but I don't wanna make a private appointment to you 'cause I'm. I don't know. I've got this nightmare vendor and you know, I, I, I need to go with tried and trusted rather than new, [00:32:20] but I'll still get you through when I'm getting the other buyer's agents through. Does that make sense?

[00:32:23] Chris: Do you imagine it's gonna go like, because they have to get the sales agreement, right? do you think that you'll [00:32:30] have like. I dunno, like an archive function, you know, like live listings versus like semi watt off markets. Like, you know, we've got these [00:32:40] properties that are, you know, they want to sell, but they're holding out for certain prices.

[00:32:45] Chris: You know, like, is it like a team? We label

[00:32:47] William: the platform like pre and. Off. Like [00:32:50] if an agent says, look, it's pre, like we're just gonna put it on for a week. We wanna see what matches we're getting based on the buyer briefs out there. And then we're actually like, we're scheduled to do our first Saturday open home in [00:33:00] two weeks,

[00:33:00] Chris: but maybe like a kind of off market.

[00:33:02] Chris: It's kind of like opportunistic. Do you have an opportunistic label? Yeah. Like where it's, you know, oh, we haven't done a, signed a sales agreement. I know [00:33:10] we've got like three, this, this type of property on this street that's really keen to sell at 3.5. But they're just not committing to a sales agreement.

[00:33:17] Chris: Like, do you see, there's gonna be like a, a second [00:33:20] tier of, you know, because if, if, if, for example, you know, you've got a buyer's agent and he's got a brief, right? I wanna buy this part of the suburb at 3.5, they, that just starts the conversation [00:33:30] between the, you know, the agent and this buyer's agent. It's like, no, that our client really wants to be on that street and is probably happy to, to meet that seller's price [00:33:40] because they really wanna buy on that.

[00:33:41] Chris: Fire property, you know what I mean? Like it's kind of, it's, it's almost like a matchmaking service where the agent can then really go in and go, look, I've, I'm [00:33:50] not just, you know, putting something in your letterbox pretending I've got buyers, I've got a buyer's agent here. I know they want. Totally. Yeah.

[00:33:57] Chris: Are you, is that where you're heading? That's that

[00:33:58] William: and that's why we built that, that [00:34:00] side for the real estate agent. 'cause you don't have to put up a listing to see all the buyer briefs.

[00:34:04] Veronica: Yeah. Okay. So you know you've gone through an appraisal. You know that, that those people, when that three are thinking [00:34:10] about selling, you go to 'em and say, you know what?

[00:34:11] Veronica: We've got three buyer's agents that have got briefs that would suit this. I mean, this totally is a thing too, because you, that's what

[00:34:18] William: I want for the real estate aid. Like that's [00:34:20] how I want them to use it. I want them to go on and look at that. There's 10 briefs in Bal Main for whatever, and then go and prospect from it.

[00:34:28] William: Go and door knock, like these are [00:34:30] motivated buyers in the market. They've paid the engagement fee. They're looking to buy, like, 'cause on the brief, there's a, it's like an image tile. You see, Veronica, you would see that the, [00:34:40] the briefs that people put out on, so the, the on social media, the brief has color to it.

[00:34:45] William: You know, it's like they don't want to do co only, we'll do cosmetic renos only north facing [00:34:50] whatever. And often they'll be like, they've sold, they need to purchase, they've got a, they've got a four month settlement, like they need to buy something. So the agents, the real estate [00:35:00] agents should be prospecting off those briefs.

[00:35:03] William: Put up a listing gray, 'cause then it'll match based on any new briefs that go on. But go on and just prospect off it because they're [00:35:10] all, we like, as I say, like, don't burn a lead. Right. It's, it's a platform of leads for real estate agents.

[00:35:19] Veronica: So does this sort of [00:35:20] feed into that? You know, so the, the buyer's agents, a lot of new buyer's agents already oversell this off market thing anyway, so the, this is almost quarantining a chunk of [00:35:30] the market to say, well, we're gonna lock everybody else out.

[00:35:32] Veronica: You know, so you have to, that, that, that sort of feeds into this. Terrible sales pitch that I hate, which is buyer's age. I'm gonna get you [00:35:40] access to properties that nobody else can get access to. You know, if, if, if an agent puts it on there, say they're Ray White and they put it on their own portal and they put it on quiet list, is that, is that something that [00:35:50] happens or is it something that they can

[00:35:51] William: do that they just can't be on a consumer facing portal.

[00:35:54] Veronica: Got it. So it's just before they go on realestate dot comu or, or domain, we don't count the rest, whatever, all the

[00:35:59] William: Yeah, [00:36:00] yeah. All the other portals. Yeah. But yeah, the, the idea is that. We we're advocates for buy buyer's agents, like we think that they have a very good value [00:36:10] add in the ecosystem. We couldn't just have it to the general public because I know, to your point, buyer's agents shouldn't sell themselves short and pitch solely [00:36:20] on their access to off markets.

[00:36:21] William: They add so much more value beyond that. And if that's there, well, they should. Yeah. Well they, yeah, exactly. Um, but if that's how they pitch themselves and they're pitching [00:36:30] themselves short. There a vendor who wants to do a quiet sale wouldn't put their house on the platform. If it was available to all in Sundry 'cause then they would [00:36:40] just put it on.

[00:36:40] William: Then they'd just put it on a major portal. Anyway, so here's

[00:36:43] Veronica: the thing too though, I mean we get vendors approaching us and my business saying, I've got this property and I'm wondering if you know you got a client for it. [00:36:50] I'm like, I don't wanna deal with vendors like that. Quite frankly, you don't deal that.

[00:36:53] Veronica: Most of them are absolutely unrealistic. They need an agent to actually get them in the game. And you [00:37:00] know, and when we are negotiating with somebody to buy a property, I much prefer to negotiate with a sales agent than with a highly emotional vendor. Is really precious about their property, their bloody [00:37:10] nightmare.

[00:37:10] Veronica: Um, there used to be this, um, was an air list that was a platform which was sort of property whispers.

[00:37:17] William: There's a few of these. Well, yeah.

[00:37:18] Veronica: Consumer [00:37:20] facing, um, yeah.

[00:37:20] William: Listing Loop and Property Whispers. They're still around, but they're direct to consumer. Yeah. And they try and cut out the agent, or both agents.

[00:37:27] William: Yeah.

[00:37:27] Veronica: Yes. Yeah. And so it was funny because, you know, I, I [00:37:30] look at these, I, they'd come across and I go, oh look, I'll see what, what is on these list, these portals. And hilariously, there was one of them had a two bedroom house in [00:37:40] Birchgrove. Um, and Birchgrove is a little tiny. Point at the end of the tip of Balmain, uh, a lot of the properties do have harbor views and views across the city and there's a lot of [00:37:50] sort of workers' cottages right up to waterfronts.

[00:37:51] Veronica: Right. And so this was a, one of those two bedroom workers' cottages that did actually have a view of the city they had. $10 million price [00:38:00] tag. Now, this was a number of years ago, but even today that took that property would not get $10 million. Nowhere near it. Right? And it just cracked me up. And then it got, just got [00:38:10] piled on by developers who, who piled on all the, their shit stock that they weren't able to move.

[00:38:14] Veronica: Right? And I thought, what a worthless platform. You know? Yeah. And, and I think it does need the agents to [00:38:20] be involved to make sure that it does have some value, like you're saying. You know, they've gotta have, um, and an agent isn't gonna waste their time putting on a two bedroom house in Birch Grove for 10 with a $10 million [00:38:30] asking price.

[00:38:30] Veronica: They're just not even gonna get outta bed to try to help that person sell their house. So I think that sort of, you know, I can see that there's some pragmatic pragmatism. I guess that it's that [00:38:40] in your approach, I guess there's a lot of. Misreading of the problem out there in the, in the tech space, in in real estate, and I've said this many, many times, but in this off [00:38:50] market thing, because every buyer who has unrealistic price expectations in terms of what they can get for their money, thinks that off market is their solution.

[00:38:58] Veronica: Right? They think that it's [00:39:00] like. Oh, I know. I'm just missing this hidden market. That's why I can't get what I want for less money than the market, the rest of the market's prepared to pay. Do you know what I mean? So there's always [00:39:10] unrealistic expectations, both vendor and buyer. So I think this is quite interesting that it does bring the professionals together.

[00:39:16] William: Yeah, I think they're the key part of this whole element because like [00:39:20] as the data going back to the start, like as the data showed this was already happening. These deals, this percentage of deals within the market? Yeah. Before our platform was even up [00:39:30] and running.

[00:39:30] Veronica: So you're enabled. So we're

[00:39:31] William: just trying to connect the two.

[00:39:33] Veronica: Not, but I guess some of your posts, I was thinking that, oh, there's rising off markets. I'm thinking, yeah, really. I'm not sure about [00:39:40] that, but

[00:39:40] William: yeah, no, we're, we're definitely not saying rise. We're just saying here's the data. This is what we've found and what, what we've uncovered. This is what we think [00:39:50] could be a really good solution to try and ensure that every buyer's agent or every real estate agent is getting that off market deal in front of the right buyer's, agent, audience, and not just the [00:40:00] four that they know.

[00:40:01] William: Because they've done deals with them.

[00:40:02] Veronica: See, looking ahead though. I know, you know, you talk to enough real estate agents and you know that they, they generally hate the [00:40:10] red brand. You know, the, the REA group is dominant and they don't really like dealing with them. You know, that's, that's sort of the common feeling.

[00:40:18] Veronica: They're, they're a bit more ambivalent towards the [00:40:20] green brand, but the red brand in particular, and you know, there's actually some legal action. I think the. REO in New South Wales, I think is, is involved in some, um, action with the A or reported [00:40:30] them to the ACCC over sort of unfair pricing and other things, which we probably should put a call out.

[00:40:34] Veronica: Tim, Tim Mcg given, if you're listening to this, we should get you on to talk about that. But what I'm the why [00:40:40] IRA raised that is because sales agents would be looking at agencies. We are looking at ways. To cut out that type of market dominance to work around it. Do you think, is there a [00:40:50] potential, I guess, for a change in the way properties come to market, say, in an auction dominated area like Sydney, would you, would, could you envisage that that would change [00:41:00] as a result of, uh, sort of a, you know, more focus on quiet listings

[00:41:04] William: perhaps?

[00:41:04] William: I, I think, I think that there is still. There's a reason why this is 20% of the market, right? Like [00:41:10] as you talked about in the beginning, like that auction day, that selling agent, they want to get the exposure, they wanna meet the new buyers. Auction is a very transparent way to often get a really good [00:41:20] result.

[00:41:20] William: I think that going back to your red and green, um, analogy that the. Vendors need another avenue. It can't [00:41:30] just be, this is how much it costs. This is the four week campaign. This is what it is because every situation is different and there has to be a way to at least try [00:41:40] or amplify their, what they wanna do in terms of the sale of their property outside of those two main players and that [00:41:50] set formula.

[00:41:51] William: Exorbitant costs that go with it.

[00:41:53] Veronica: So with the rise of ai, right, you know, people can get into CHATT now and look for, for listings and I [00:42:00] guess they won't be able, but they won't be able to access yours 'cause it's a locked platform. So, you know, that will be hidden to them. But you know. Because, you know, I think that's probably more of a threat to the [00:42:10] portals possibly than your portal.

[00:42:11] Veronica: Your, your platform would be the very fact that you can go and, you know, AI democratizes this data. Other people will pay to put it on there. Yeah, but I'm not [00:42:20] necessarily using that platform to find out about it. Maybe. Um, well it goes

[00:42:22] William: back to the agents' that own websites being perhaps a major player again.

[00:42:28] Veronica: Yeah, yeah, [00:42:30] yeah. Interesting.

[00:42:31] William: William, so can you give us a property, Dumbo mate? My, uh, my property, Dumbo is probably, it's not a personal experience, it's an observation. Um, that might be helpful [00:42:40] for your listeners is that when it comes to property, like everyone's got a recommendation and some of them are good and some of them are bad.

[00:42:47] William: I think the one that gets overlooked the most is [00:42:50] someone's mother's brother's cousin as their conveyancer or solicitor, in particularly in Sydney. Sometimes it's not necessarily the budget that makes you miss [00:43:00] out on the deal. It's the speed of the transaction and if your solicitor or conveyancer is in a mediation or just isn't doing in court.

[00:43:08] William: Yeah, you just need to go [00:43:10] with someone who can review a contract in a timely and professional manner to so you're at least in the running to get it Going. Back to your point, these things aren't always going all the way to auction, [00:43:20] and if someone's afraid, you're just some solicitor who's in a mediation for the next two days, guess what?

[00:43:24] William: You are not gonna buy it and you might be able to afford it. So that would be my Dumbo of the week. Like, check your buyer's [00:43:30] agent, check your real estate agent, but also figure out who is the best solicitor and how quickly can they come back to you, because the speed at which you can transact property is.[00:43:40]

[00:43:40] William: Yeah, in New South Wales at least.

[00:43:41] Chris: I mean, in that same vein, I'm not gonna give too much information away 'cause it's, it's just wrapping up now, but just don't use the conveyance. So the real estate agent [00:43:50] recommends as well? No, um, uh, yeah, it, it's, uh, and then you find out that you know the property you've.

[00:43:58] Chris: Buying you want, which has [00:44:00] got issues. Then you see photos with the real estate agent and the conveyance all over Facebook and Instagram, and they're all, is this

[00:44:07] Veronica: your Dumbo Chris? No, not me. No, no, no. [00:44:10] It's

[00:44:10] Chris: a, it's a, it's a client that's, um, just dealt with this issue in the last week or so, um, and had to get another conveyance.

[00:44:17] Chris: Right. But you got a bit awkward. It was like, you know, oh God, I [00:44:20] realize that you are just basically in bed with this. Uh, agent and it was really, it's 'cause you know this, when you highlight real issues with the, the property, like we're talking, um, yeah. And that [00:44:30] legal, yeah. This, this is like building issues.

[00:44:32] Chris: Like, you know, the, it, it put the, a, the conveys in a really awkward position here as well, right? Like it, but you could see there was a huge [00:44:40] hiding of information and, um. Yeah. And it was kind of like, yeah. How did you find out the activate? It was through the agent. Ah, right, okay.

[00:44:47] William: And a buyer doesn't think about it until they're like, okay, like, [00:44:50] what's a 66?

[00:44:50] William: W what, like, what are, what are all these things that I need to have yesterday type thing. Getting someone to review a contract, they're just happy. They found something that they like and they [00:45:00] wanna buy 'em. They might be able to afford the, the, the solicitor is not even in focus for them. And then often they'll just miss out because.

[00:45:08] William: They get a recommendation from [00:45:10] someone and it, it's unfortunate, but it happens all the time.

[00:45:13] Veronica: I've seen, and also you see some solicitors that aren't necessarily very commercial, and so they actually get in the way of a [00:45:20] deal by insisting on these ridiculous contract changes and you go, how important is that really?

[00:45:25] Veronica: Come on. I mean, I know you're flexing your muscle, but are you really representing your client's best interests here? And so [00:45:30] you gotta sort of. Balance all of that out. I'm amazed at, you know, the contract review. What does that even mean? So like in our business, you know, we often, we recommend, there's a handful of [00:45:40] conveyances and, and solicitors that we would recommend.

[00:45:42] Veronica: Sometimes our clients choose one of those. Sometimes they bring in their own and obviously. Seen, you know, we send the contract off for review fairly early in the piece too, because if [00:45:50] there's deal breakers there or things that we need to investigate, we need time to do that. And, um, we wanna be ready, if something's gonna be selling prior to auction, we wanna be able to take to either drive it or [00:46:00] respond to that accordingly, or hold back wait, you know, for whatever's appropriate.

[00:46:04] Veronica: Right. But, you know, sometimes we, we, we found there's an additional question to ask the con, the solicitor or the [00:46:10] conveyance, say you send it off for review, they come back this. With very little. And so you say, right. So on the basis of that review, would you recommend our client sign with the 66 W? Oh no.

[00:46:19] Veronica: I'd be [00:46:20] asking for all these, these changes, right? And I'm like, oh my God. Like, you know. So you think if a solicitor comes back and says, oh yeah, it's good to go, it's all good. You mean it's [00:46:30] good to sign, but they don't always mean. So it's, it's quite an interesting little tiny nuance, but something that, uh, we put into our process a long, long time ago to make sure we [00:46:40] didn't get to the wire, and then all of a sudden then this solicitor says, oh no, you want all these changes, you know, very late in the, in the case, when you think you're ready, you think you're ready.

[00:46:48] Veronica: Yeah. So,

[00:46:49] Chris: yeah. But [00:46:50] let's have you back next year, mate. Once you've got your, uh, Melbourne and Brisbane. Yeah. With that new data set, I'll be able

[00:46:54] William: to tell you if it's a trend then on, or if it's just an observation.

[00:46:58] Veronica: Yeah, it'd be very interesting. And also the [00:47:00] differences in different markets. You know, there's, there's different drivers and different behaviors, so we, yeah, it would be interesting to know.

[00:47:05] Chris: Cool. Talk soon. Thanks. Thanks Anne. Thank you. Thanks

[00:47:07] William: for your time guys.

[00:47:08] Speaker 7: If you have a question that you'd [00:47:10] like us to answer in an upcoming q and a episode, you can send us a voicemail or written question via the website. The elephant in the room.com au. Or you can [00:47:20] email us directly at questions at the elephant in the room.com

[00:47:24] Speaker 7: au.

[00:47:24] Speaker 7: If you like what you're hearing, please share this episode with others you feel would benefit. And while you're at it, why not leave [00:47:30] us an iTunes review? Five stars would be great. I know that sounds a bit cringey, but we have it on good old authority that every review helps make it easier for other people to find out about [00:47:40] us and hear what our amazing guests have to say.